HOMILY FOR THE 28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME,YEAR B

HOMILY FOR THE 28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B
READINGS
Wisdom 7:7-11
Hebrews 4:12-13
Mark 10:17-30
Beloved in Christ, this morning mother church invites us to reflect on the theme of Eternal life and how we are to use our life in this world as a preparation for it. I have therefore chosen ” THE ETERNAL LIFE TEST” as our theme for this sunday. The aim is to help us appreciate the fact that the choices we make in this life have consequence for the next life.
Beloved, our attitude towards riches and how we use them knowing that judgement awaits us all is the focus from the readings of today. And this is clearly affirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church ( 2544), where Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer Him to everything and everyone, and further bids them’ renounce all that they have’ for His sake and that of the Gospel, to show that detachment from riches is OBLIGATORY for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Beloved in Christ, Mark begins today’s passage with a very wonderful introduction: the man came to Jesus running and with a desire for Eternal life, but in the end he went away from Jesus very sad. And the reason lies in his love for material possession. In fact, He knew there was life after this one and he wanted to be part of it. Therefore he did all he could except charity to the poor . He had a deep seated attachment to his wealth. He could not do without them.
My dear friend, a story is told of a rich man who died but when they had dug his grave a certain mad man in the town came around making fun of the grave diggers saying the grave for the dead rich man was too small and that the diggers were lazy. For he(mad man) expected a grave that could hold the rich man as well as his riches.
Beloved, the truth is that material wealth and possessions lose their relevance at death. They cannot go into the grave with us , neither can they go with us beyond the grave.
My dear friend, though the man in the Gospel had faith , he had no work to show for it (James 2:17). And by going away he walked from Charity and Eternal life. And a point of interest in this story is that the name of the man is not given; so put your
name and see yourself in the story.
Beloved in Christ, sometimes our material possession blind us to God and to our neighbour. A story is told of a very poor family of five people who received a cup of rice as an act of kindness from a stranger but they quickly shared this cup of rice which in effect will not be enough for them with another family whom they claimed were poorer than them.
Today let us remember that nobody is too poor that he or she cannot give;
a)for you are better than someone so be kind enough to give
b) someone is better than you so be humble.
Let us resolve then to rewrite this story by giving our all to God as we sing….
My life time, I will give God my life time
If I give God my life time
He will take care of me
He will never never let me down
I will give God my life time.